Alright, to ao3's soon to be arriving Wattpad Refugees, a basic guide to general user culture:

1.) Unlike Wattpads vote system that let's you like each chapter, the ao3 equivalent kudos only allows one per work. Everyone is generally quietly annoyed about this. To engage with each chapter, you're heavily encouraged to comment. Trust me, it makes people's day.

2.) Ao3 has no algorithm. By default it's latest updated work first. You can find things to your taste through searches, filters and tags.

3.) 'No archive warnings apply' and 'user has chosen not to use archive warnings' mean two very different things. No archives warnings means the work is free from any content that could require a warning tag (character death, graphic depictions of violence, non-con, etc). User has chosen not to use archive warnings means it could contain any of the warning content, be it hasn't been explicitly tagged. Treat it like an allergen. No archive warnings apply is allergen free. User has chosen not to use archive warnings, may contain traces or whole chunks of the allergen. If you're likely to have a bad reaction, maybe don't take the risk.

4.) Speaking of warnings, ao3 has very few restrictions on the type of work that's allowed. Whatever your personal thoughts or feelings on that are, thats how the site is. You're likely to run across some dark subject matters and a lot of people are uncomfortable with reading that. You're well within your rights not like these works and have your opinion on whether they should be allowed, but harassing the authors of such works (or any works) is more likely to come back on you than them. Ao3 operates on a strong policy of 'don't like, don't read'. Use the tagging system to your full advantage to only engage with the kind of works you want to see.

We look forward to welcoming you all and seeing the fantastic works you create. Happy writing!

Endlessly diabolical how you can't say words like rape and suicide uncensored without either being criticised by idiots or punished by conglomerates.

It's not r*pe, it's rape. It's not su*cide, it's suicide. Not unalive, dead. The backbone needs to be reintroduced en masse because softening the blow of these concepts with advertising language does absolutely nothing but allow people unaffected by them to feel not even a sting of what they can do, prompting inaction.

And it's been proven that on certain websites, you don't even face a repercussion for using the words as they are. People just started censoring themselves because they feared the potential lack of views and likes and followers which is so nasty itself.

Not to mention the fact that censoring words like that actively makes it harder for people who have trauma with those subjects to avoid them. This happens on the aita blog all the time. Someone will send in a question with "cw r*pe" and then people in the comments will be like "hi, i have filters for the word rape and this post got past them because you censored it." It makes people feel like they're doing something good while actually completely neutralizing people's attempts to curate their online experience to avoid their triggers.

@batmanisagatewaydrug

many people wonder which of the responses to the taylor swift post I find most annoying, and if I may be honest? it's all the people who tag it as 'q slur'

evidently I did not arrange the blankets to her liking

okay, she's settled down

my cousins made fun of me last weekend because Chiefcake has a bed frame and I don’t

Bunny Heritage Post

https://www.newspapers.com/article/raftsmans-journal-richmond-has-fallen/4957499/

August 16 1865, Raftman's Journal Pennysylvania

Deflection

[Image text: there's actually no political label or identity that absolves you of doing harm.]

Remember "don't let identity trump ideology"? I do. Let's follow that axiom.

just saw a stupid post about saw. someone hold me back

"saw is so quintessentially American 🙄"

it was made. by two australians.

you are not supposed to agree with jigsaw. you're SUPPOSED to think he's a shitty old bitch who regularly goes against his own "code". that's the point. im attacking you.

tumblr user: wow saw (2004) says a lot about American society post 9/11 i should write a paper about it

leigh whannell, writing saw: oughh head hurt :(

And don't think your situation is going to be "so sad that it'll pull on their heartstrings" and make some insurance company do the right thing.

Unfortunately they've heard it all before. They're desensitized and it's just going to sound like whining. Maybe, just maybe, people in the US shouldn't NEED to rely on their heartstrings to get medical care.

yknow i never noticed the sheer rareness of images having ids or alt text on this website until i started adding alt text to my art (and trying to remember to add it to any images i post in general, especially text screenshots) and that makes me kinda sad

I feel like a lot of people just don't know how to do it or are intimidated by the prospect. I was too, actually, and I couldn't find any good guides on how to do it (beyond basic formatting) and most guides boiled down to "just describe what you see and important details!" I really wanted to add alt text bc accessibility is important to me, but I would always get kinda stumped on how to do it.

But then I saw this image, I think in a discord server, and I immediately started doing it. It kinda broke the ice for me

The beacon is lit. America calls for aid.

Remember, if you haven't felt the first edible in 5-10 minutes eat two or three more

op tryna make bees come outta ppls bones

Thank you for appreciating my image cropping